He was born on the planet Krypton.But the Man of Steel comes to life in California, inside an edit room in Burbank.
It's there that James Gunn is reviewing a scene from what Warner Brothers hopes is a summer blockbuster: "Superman." With a reported budget of at least $225 million, it arrives in theaters July 11.It's the first feature from DC Studios, a division of Warner Brothers. Gunn is not only the film's director; he wrote the screenplay, and he's DC's CEO."I feel good about the movie," he said.
"And I'm excited about that.And I think we've done something that's different."Among those differences: "My Superman is not indestructible," Gunn said.
"We see him bleed, immediately.At times, I've thought, 'He's too strong.' You don't want him to be able to punch a planet in half or, for that matter, go around a planet a billion times and make time go backwards, you know? I wanted a Superman who was a little bit more down-to-Earth."And few things are more down-to-Earth than a dog.
"The dog is the whole reason – [it] was the start of the movie for me, a thousand percent," Gunn said."I adopted a dog.
His name is Ozu.And he didn't want to be touched, he had never known human beings.
He chewed up all our furniture.He was, you know, chasing the cat, and just being the worst dog you can imagine.
And I thought, 'Wow.What if this terrible dog had super powers? I'd really be screwed!'" The first Superman feature film came in 1951 with George Reeves, who later played the role on TV.
In this century, Superman has been played by Brandon Routh and Henry Cavill.But in the last 75 years, only one big screen Superman has fully captured the audience's imagination: Christopher Reeve.
Trained in the theater, Reeve was a graduate of the Juilliard School in New York – as is the new Superman, David Corenswet.He is 31 – seven years older than Reeve was when he made his debut in 1978.
"I don't think there's any way or reason to try to sort of live up to Christophe...